Tales of Summons
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: Some serious, some funny, this si a collection of flashfic, hope to hav e one for each spirit.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: A first enstallment in a self made challenge. To write a flash fic centering around a character and a summon spirit. The first is a Mithos centered peice, pre-game, set during the Kharlan War. I'll have notes for each piece so no one gets lost.

_Cooking_

Mithos glared at the ex-brigand, Kratos returned the glare. The remains of the human's stew were slowly dribbling along the sands, making a dull brown stream at the red clad man's feet. Kratos' eye twitched, a bad sign. Seeing the Protozoan, Mithos lifted a hand and pointed to the avian shaped being.

"Noishe started it!"

"Noishe, did not start it. And it matters not who started it, you finished it and wasted more food than I care to think about-"

And Kratos went on… and on about the dumb food. He didn't even listen to Mithos when the half elf tried to explain. So the brave hero of Sylune, savior of the Duke of Klavir, and hopeful regenerator of the great Kharlan Tree was now stuck making dinner.

He had sulked and whined, but at last he'd gotten to it. Cutting the vegetables wasn't that bad, fetching the water tiring but not really a big chore. It was the waiting that got to him. The long, boring span of waiting that drove him absolutely crazy!

"Boil, curse you!" Mithos growled at the water.

"No using your fireball spell!" Yuan barked.

What made it twice as unfair was that Kratos had gotten Yuan to go along with this. Mithos could have cheated, just a tiny bit, but with those alien sapphire eyes boring into him he hadn't quite dared. Because Mithos knew Yuan, Yuan wouldn't yell at him or anything, he'd just tell Martel then he'd really be in it then.

It just wasn't fair! Heros shouldn't have to make dinner!

Then suddenly an idea came to him, he smiled and raised a hand. With a quick chant the small fire flickered, then shot up, expanded a hundred times and the heat became so intense that the nearest trees withered and shed their branches. The grass around the once small cook fire ignited, and from the towering blaze came a creature.

Red, it towered over the nearest tree and was wreathed in flames from the deepest hells, it's hide had been forged from the hottest pyres of the sun, and it's twin horns made from the ashes of the burned bones of the world.

Little wonder they called him "the red giant".

The creature bowed to his summoner, it's ember eyes then scanned the clearing and it's shocked occupants indifferently.

"I see no enemies."

Its voice was the crackling of fire, the snap of trees shattering in the face of the hottest conflagration.

Smiling Mithos spied the pot perched between those horns, he pointed and Efreet reached up with a clawed hand to take off the makeshift "helmet".

"Thank you." Mithos took the steaming pot and it's scalding hot water from the spirit. The oversized mitts he was wearing protected his hands from the scalding heat. "I just needed the water to boil, and it's really hot now."

Had Efreet any eyebrows to raise both would have shot up, as it was he was bound by the pact and now that his duty was done must leave the world that could only barely tolerate his presence. Confused, he looked around to see if that's all his summoner had needed, no fell armies materialized and the golden haired child seemed content to fuss over the charred pot.

At last, he shrugged, the last words he heard from the world of mortals was the spring haired girls voice.

"You summoned Efreet _to cook dinne_r!"

"The fire was too slow Mar-"

"You are in _serious_ trouble mister."


	2. Such a Horrible Birth

Writhing, screaming, Kratos lay at the feet of a Goddess. Both were as pale as the Goddess' namesake luinesence, only one of them cried… Or rather only one of them could. Slender fingers twined auburn locks, even as ghostly hands wound around the whimpering human's frame to support him. She supported, and looked on, without horror, without fear, as the crimson lines along the man's back opened. They had started as nicks, and as time wore on grew to terrifying proportion. Every few second they seemed to be gaining yet another inch in length and width, the once dribble of crimson was now a torrent.

"Mithos, you swore this would be painless, that there would be no cost!"

Ice eyes, dead, they focused on him and he shivered.

"Everything has a cost, why should immortality be any different?"

Yuan no longer recognized the cold dead child before him, he moved to go to Kratos' side, perhaps his meager healing mana might be able to reverse… but a familiar power held him back. Origins' power…

Ripping, the sound of skin ripping, the sight of flesh parting, he'd never forget both. Had nightmares been allowed to him after he would have forever dreamed of both that sight and sound, but dreams were no longer his to cherish… or dread. Not after that day.

Kratos' skin writhed, tensed, and coiled; all in patterns so unnatural that there could be no doubt that the creature being wracked by such spasms was no longer be human.

Or sane.

Gasping, no longer able to scream, the mercenary lifted his head. Red dribbled past his lips, a shocking crimson that ran down pallid lips. Hands clenched, turning the dun hued paving stone that adorned the most holy sight of Sylvarant into little more than sand. Kratos arched with a soundless scream, his face contorted in agony, his hands spasming sending the newly made dust to the winds.

Glazed but haunted, those brown eyes turned to them… seeking what, reassurance? Yuan could offer nothing, frozen by place in horror, and the reflected fear in Kratos' eyes made Yuan feel as if he had been part of a betrayal.

Kratos turned away form them both, and the Goddess held him as he mutely cried out and sobbed silently. Sobbed without tears, his pain echoing in the silences of his altered mind.

"Mithos, you're killing him! Stop this!"

Futilely he reached for the Eternal Sword, meant to wrench it from the once noble half elf's hands… and he was rebuffed, again, by Origin.

He collapsed from the unseen reprimand; fell upon his knees gasping in pain. Unable to do anything else he watched. He couldn't save Kratos but he would not abandon his sole human friend.

Something wet, as long as a man was tall surged form the prone man's back. Kratos twisted and the Goddess held him steady, ignorant it seemed of liquid rubies that now dotted her white gown. She looked upon them, upon the once-man in her arms. Tears, colorless, then imbued with the iridescent luminance from her hair, made a rainbow path down her face.

_What can I do?_ Her eyes asked.

"Stop this!" Yuan howled. "I beg you, please, stop this. Kill him if you must, just make it stop!"

And when she looked upon him, the grief said what words could not.

She could not stop it, because it was already completed.

Red dripped from the rock still things that jutted out of Kratos' back, then slowly, oh so slowly the crimson rain fell away. Shivering, coated in slimy black the things twitched, and then fanned out. Feathers, shedding the mess of dead diseased muscle that had sheathed and nurtured them during their birth… They slowly fanned out. Two became four, then eight, wings of impossible length, he shuddered to think of the pain of their birth. Of the impossible being nursed within a mortal's flesh and blood only to be ejected in such a horrible rending.

Such a horrible birth…

Luna looked upon the shivering creature in her hands, the creature her benediction and Mithos' vision had made, she held him close and cried the tears he could not.


	3. Lullaby

Tales of Summon: Spirit Focus, Undine

Lullaby

When it rains, he remembers…

"_Look, there see? When it pours like this, do you see?"_

A warm arm encircled his waist. Holding him back so that he wouldn't wander beyond the edge of the light and get lost in the dark. He leaned back, breathing in the scent of her warmth and the wet earth. For him, they were inseparable. She always smelled of the rain, and now knowing what it was, he smiled. For him, she and the rain were one.

"_Look over there."_

_She had pointed, and obedient, he had looked. Shapeless shadows were ringed in flickering, falling, aqua, auras. They seemed different, alive, despite the fact that he knew he was really looking at a dead old stump. The dark shivered, pealed away, even as the sky roared, and he cringed back against the warmth. Another arm joined the first, her long auburn hair fell across his face, even as Volt roared and Sylph howled in response._

"_Shh, it's alright my little Kra-sean. Just Volt and Sylph being loud. They're old friends you know, they just won't admit it."_

"_Re… really…" He whimpered, his black eyes wide._

"_That's why Volt roars, and Sylph howls. It's a contest of sorts. They make noise an whoever scares the most little children wins." He felt her chuckle more than heard it, it was a soft warm tickle against the top of his head. A loving caress accompanied by a loving tease._

"_You aren't scared, are you?"_

"_N… no..." Blinking the tears out of his eyes, tears born of a child's fears. "I... I'm not scared of anything." He assured, with a thin watery smile._

_She laughed at that, and held him close._

"_You don't need to protect me, Kra'sean, by not being afraid. Undine will protect us both just fine." _

_He nestled against her, drawing strength from her warmth. She held him, humming a lullaby older than centuries._

Her song, her voice… They would endure. In the centuries, in the darkest corners of his mind, to a time when sleep was little more than a fond memory, she would endure, in the edges of his recollection he would remember.

And when his child came to be, instinct would guild him. And when it rained Kratos Aurion would gather his son up in his arms and hum while Undine's lullaby fell around them.


End file.
